Presbia PLC (NASDAQ:LENS) has re-ordered its active priorities to focus its resources on FDA nod as well as current commercial and clinical initiatives in South Korea and Germany. These initiatives lower the firm’s cash burn rate by removing pre-FDA approval manufacturing, engineering and marketing expenses linked to the post-FDA nod U.S. commercial release of the Presbia Flexivue Microlens™. The company’s initiatives are concentrated on the valuable intellectual property advanced by the firm since 2008.
The details
In parallel, Presbia has obtained an investment plan from Orchard Capital Corporation, which is linked with company’s majority stockholder, to invest up to $5 million in the firm’s preferred shares. The planned investment, together with current cash-on-hand and a lowered burn rate, is projected to support company’s operations for 2018 and through the expected FDA nod of the Flexivue Microlens™. Presbia persists to explore other financing alternatives and intends to finalize the funds raise by next month.
In addition, the board accepted the resignation of Executive Chairman, Randy Thurman, and CEO, President and board member, Todd Cooper, effective December 11, 2017. As per the update, Mark Yung will serve as CEO of Presbia and Executive Chairman of the board. Yung has previous experience as CEO, Chairman and senior management of different manufacturing and technology firms, where he successfully directed strategy setting and execution.
Mr. Yung expressed that the board thanks Todd Cooper and Randy Thurman for their leadership at company. This is a thrilling time to join Presbia as it develops through to its final PMA module filing, and to help in making the Flexivue Microlens™ accessible as an FDA-permitted optical lens implant to more than 1.8 billion presbyopes internationally.
In the last trading session, the stock price of Presbia declined more than 8% to close the day at $3.45. The decline came at a share volume of 127,318 compared to average share volume of 58,836.